Question 1

Can I make a payment from my Freemarket account?

Accepted Answer

Your Freemarket account does allow you to send and receive money. This may be a pooled account or vIBAN account that accepts payments or makes payments to the beneficiaries. You may start to make payments right away by setting up an account and confirming payments on it.

A variety of online payments can be made using your Freemarket account, but they must be within our risk tolerance and not breach sending or receiving funds to or from countries where we do not have support. Being a regulated company, we take this seriously and update it frequently. Our operations team occasionally blocks specific payments that violate this.

How you want to send a payment may differ, by which scheme and channel, this could be SWIFT, SEPA, FPS and so on. Each payment has different costs, receipts (transaction message) and reporting.

SWIFT: this is used to send or receive international payments via the SWIFT payment network.
SEPA: SEPA stands for Single Euro Payments Area and it's a payment type used to transfer euro within the EEA.
SEPA Instant: allow you to send 100,000 per transaction, they are available 24/7, 365 days a year, and take no more than 10 seconds to reach payee’s account from the payer’s.
FasterPayments: for the majority of UK-based payments Faster Payments is in place for bank-to-bank payments and designed to speed up the process of sending money. It has a limit in place of £1m per transaction.
Target2: is the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system with payment transactions being settled processing euro payments.

If more funds are required for the payment in the platform, add them to generate a new payment. By navigating to the add funds area towards the top of the page's main menu, you may add funds to your account. Choose the currency of the funds you want to use for the payment from the add funds page, and the necessary bank information will then show up. After the funds have arrived in your account and are available for allocation, you will get an email confirmation.

After you have the funds, establish a new payment to continue, go to the transactions page, choose the beneficiary of the money (the beneficiary information will appear if it has already been used), and authorise the payment.

Question 2

How can I change my name and password?

Accepted Answer

The platform allows you to change your name and password on the top right corner once you’ve logged in. Following this, your user details will appear on the screen, and you’ll be able to edit your username, email address and phone number. If you wish to amend your password, you’ll need to know the existing password in order to change it. If you don’t know your password, then you can receive an email link resetting your password to the registered email address. Once done, you’ll be ready to use the platform for all your payment solutions.

Question 3

How can I view transactions on the platform?

Accepted Answer

To examine the prior transactions you've made, go to the transactions tab after logging into the platform. You will be able to view a comprehensive history of all scheduled, pending, and completed activities that have taken place for your transactions. You can see the sum of the balances in the various currencies you've transacted in on the left-hand side beside your planned and past trades; to view a breakdown of this information, click the "balances" tab.

Question 4

Can I apply for a Freemarket account?

Accepted Answer

You can create an account with us if you're an organisation. Our registration procedure is simple, and we make every effort to finish applications quickly and activate your account as soon as possible. With Freemarket, you can settle and reconcile funds more quickly and in real-time, access new markets and currencies, and have trust in your banking relationships.

For more information on our registration process, please click here.

When clients need to utilise the platform, we want to make sure that every account is configured for international payments. When your account is live and has cleared all compliance checks, we'll let you know.

Question 5

How can I add funds to my account?

Accepted Answer

The scheduled exchange allows us at Freemarket to operate a pre-funded model as this is how we are able to achieve mid-market rates and match funds for our clients. The pre-funded model means that all of clients that use the system must transfer the required funds in their entirety prior to the payment order occurring.

The platform allows you to transfer funds before or after booking a payment order with us, although we suggest that you do this beforehand, particularly if you have a sell payment order set up to happen with us. Please bear in mind that we will not proceed with the payment order until we have receipt of all the funds being on the account, once we receive the funds, we will execute the order.

If you require to make a transfer, you can do this on our platform by going to the add funds section on the top of the page by the main menu. From the add funds page, select the currency of the funds you wish to exchange, and the relevant bank details will appear. Once confirmed, you’ll receive an email confirmation once the funds have reached your account and are able to be allocated.

Question 6

Can I make a one time batch payment?

Accepted Answer

You can quickly, correctly, and effectively send payments to many recipients in different currencies by uploading a single file. Every 30 days, you will be prompted to authorise the beneficiaries using the platform's 2FA feature.

Each payment on the file must abide by the reachability, message content, and file rules. Payments that are halted during an investigation are removed from the file, and the remaining payments continue to be processed as usual.

Although uploaded files will be processed throughout the day, we advise using the standard FX procedure for one-time transactions that aren't multi-currency.

For more information of our batch payment process please click here.

Question 7

How can I fill out an application to create an account on another company's behalf?

Accepted Answer

A submission for a company can be quick and easy. You may complete the entire registration process online. Fill out the essential forms and submit any necessary supporting documentation. When your application has been received, please email us at hello@wearefreemarket.com, and a Relationship Manager will get in touch with you to help with any onboarding needs.

If we need additional information to support your application, you will be contacted by email.

Question 8

Where do I transfer funds?

Accepted Answer

Once you have completed registration and our compliance team is happy to proceed with authorising your Freemarket account you will gain access to us committing to providing resilience, security and speed to our clients.

In the platform you’ll see the bank details of our client-segregated accounts where you can transfer or move funds to for the payment order to be processed and executed.

Question 9

What kind of payments can I make?

Accepted Answer

There are a number of different payments schemes and types of payments that you can make.

Cross-border Payments or International Payments: a cross-border payment or international payment is sending a payment from one country to another. They are key for businesses that operate in different jurisdictions and plan to do business in new markets.
Domestic Payment: a domestic payment within the same country where the bank and merchant’s account are registered in the same country, in most cases, the currency is the same, so no FX or Foreign Exchange is required.

Types of payment schemes

SWIFT: this is used to send or receive international payments via the SWIFT payment network.
SEPA: SEPA stands for Single Euro Payments Area and it's a payment type used to transfer euro within the EEA.
SEPA Instant: allow you to send 100,000 per transaction, they are available 24/7, 365 days a year, and take no more than 10 seconds to reach payee’s account from the payer’s.
Faster Payments (FPS): for the majority of UK-based payments Faster Payments is in place for bank-to-bank payments and designed to speed up the process of sending money. It has a limit in place of £1m per transaction.
Target2: is the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system with payment transactions being settled processing euro payments.
CHAPS: CHAPS payments allow you to make same-day, high-value electronic payments.
BACS: is designed to operate a bank-to-bank payment scheme, payments can take up to three working days to clear.

Question 10

What is a foreign exchange spot transaction?

Accepted Answer

A spot FX trade is when the exchange or trade takes place at the same point the transaction is settled. You buy and sell the currency at the current market rate, also known as a spot price. Settlement usually occurs within the days preceding but due to our buying power, and us holding balances in different currencies, we can do this instantly.

Currency pairs may differ, you may trade, G10 currencies, minor pairs, emerging markets, or exotics. It’s worth noting that some currencies are less liquid than others, which might lead to a larger difference in the buy and sell price.

You can read more on FX trading from IG, CityIndex, Investopedia, CMC Markets & Refinitiv.